Plymouth could be about to get its SIXTH JD Wetherspoon pub with speculation mounting that the giant chain is about to open in Plymstock.

Sources have told The Herald the company, which has more than 1,000 outlets across the UK and keeps growing, is looking at moving into the abandoned former Co-operative supermarket on Plymstock Broadway.

The huge unit has been empty since March 2014.

Wetherspoon would not confirm it was looking at the area – but did not deny it either.

A spokesman would only say: “We can’t comment on Plymstock – will let you read into that as you wish.”

The Wetherspoons Union Rooms on Union Street

It did confirm it was not looking at sites elsewhere in Plymouth, however.

Wetherspoon already has five Plymouth outlets: The Union Rooms, Union Street; The Mannamead, Mutley Plain; The Gog and Magog, Barbican; The Britannia Inn, Milehouse; and The Stannary Court, Plympton.

It also has The Queen’s Head Hotel in Tavistock.

Wetherspoon is planning to open The King Doniert, in Liskeard, Cornwall, in March 2018.

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The firm said: “We have opened more new pubs in recent years and will be opening additional venues throughout the coming year and beyond.”

When Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin, who founded the company in 1979, visited Plymouth in November 2017, he told The Herald it was still “quite possible” to find more Plymouth sites outside the city centre.

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Plymstock Broadway has since then been hit by several shop closures including the loss of household goods business Homeworkx and Wool Palette in 2017.

But it did gain a Costa coffee outlet in February 2017.

Costa, like Wetherspoon, is also a chain experiencing huge expansion.

Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin shares a joke with Boris Johnson

In November 2017, Wetherspoon said sales growth nearly doubled in the first quarter of its financial year, compared to a year earlier, with like-for-like sales for the 13 weeks to October 29, 2017, rising 6.1 per cent compared to growth of 3.5 per cent a year earlier.

The company said sales continued at a “slightly higher-than-expected level”

In September 2017, Wetherspoon posted an increase of almost 28 per cent in annual pretax profit, saying the wet British summer last year had boosted sales.

But the company, led by staunch Brexiter Mr Martin, has been hit by higher costs related to its purchases made in foreign currencies following the drop in the value of sterling since the Brexit referendum.